


To Strive, To Seek, To Find

by halotolerant



Category: Lewis - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-04
Updated: 2010-09-04
Packaged: 2017-10-11 11:29:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/111941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halotolerant/pseuds/halotolerant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lewis and Hathaway, finding each other. </p>
            </blockquote>





	To Strive, To Seek, To Find

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you elfwhistletree for beta. Quotes taken from The Gospel of John, Wittgenstein and Acts.

It is the goal of all they do, of all he has ever done.

 

The truth.

 

_The truth_, says the Gospel of John, _shall set you free_. 

 

Hathaway does not believe that now. Not because he does not believe in God, because he still does, fervently.

 

Because he has sought that truth all his life with different means and better and occasionally worse ways, and with all of that laid out behind him, James Hathaway can see that there are two kinds of truth. Two kinds of knowing things.

 

First there are the things you know are true because you're told they are, because a world or a world-view hangs together on their framework.

 

Then there are things that _are_. That you have, that you hold, that you be.

 

_A priori_ and _a posteriori_, if you want to be theological. Or you could talk about gut feelings.

 

All those words get in the way, James decides. _Whereof one cannot speak, thereon one must remain silent._

 

This thing that is happening, is happening.

 

Call it one name or a hundred thousand, or deny it. It is still true.

 

\- - -

 

Lewis' arms around him are tentative and hesitant, and James knows all kinds of things: _I'm too young for him_, _He's not gay_, _This isn't professional_.

 

But he also knows, because here, now, it's in front of him, that Lewis' breathing is shallow and too quick. Heat rolls off him even through the shirt he's wearing, striking through from his blood to James' skin.

 

They were never even supposed to work together, let alone _this_.

 

James himself is naked. He is unsure quite how this happened – one minute they had just been sitting, just eating curry with a fair amount of beer, arms and legs bashing and laughter flying. Then something in the room had slipped off an edge, slick and heavy, and there had been an odd, weighty silence.

 

Somebody had kissed somebody – he can't remember who moved first, however much he wants to – and then it had stopped and it was at that point that somehow he'd taken his clothes off, trying to prove he wanted this.

 

And that was when Lewis had caught and hugged him. Warm and calming and without any expectations in it, affection and confusion thick as fog between them, making the simplest act in the world complicated.

 

James grumbles and shifts, bringing his arms over Lewis' back and pressing them closer together.

 

This - he feels - is stupid and foolish and far too desperate. But at the same time he knows that…_oh fuck, oh fuck,_ Lewis is hard too.

 

That sound – he realises that was him. He's making a noise now, one he didn't know he knew how make, one he didn't know he had inside him.

 

Lewis gasps at it and so James nuzzles closer, kissing his neck, feeling the scrape of buttons against his own bare chest where they mould into each other.

 

He's got his eyes closed – didn't mean to, has to, to cope. It feels so good, so bad, so filthy and indecent to be like this, all naked and pale against properly dressed Robert Lewis, who is hot and who is _hot_ and panting too.

 

Running his hands up Lewis' back, James pushes them through his hair, thinking idle things about dipping hands out of boats on a hot day, and how perfect that feels.

 

"Open your eyes," says a gentle voice, all northern vowels and rumble. "Look at me."

 

The room seems very bright, almost clinical. Lewis' face is flushed, but his gaze is steady.

 

"You're not just…" the edge of anxiety in Lewis' voice is new, and makes James want to kiss him. "I thought something like this might… You're not just wanting to try it with a man? Because that's fine, but I can't…"

 

James knows that Lewis is pulling away, cotton friction on skin. But he also knows how dark and heavy-lidded Lewis' eyes have become, and how they are searching his face for clues with familiar attention and unfamiliar anxiety.

 

And James knows _this_, knows _them_, and just because something isn't sensible or doesn't make sense, it doesn't mean it can't exist.

 

So he pushes closer again and says "No, no, you. It's you. I want you."

 

And so the words he's played in his a head a hundred times, dramatically, fall out quick and urgent, calling Lewis back to him.

 

There's something extraordinarily tempting – sex for James has always in the past been expectation and experiment, scarcely pleasant - about Lewis' groin. James surges forward, feels their two erections slide side by side together and hisses.

 

"I want you," he emphasises.

 

"Hathaway…" the word trails away because Lewis is biting his lip, closing his eyes now and so obviously trying to control himself that James has to stifle the urge to see if he can make that task impossible.

 

"Hathaway, don't make me lose you."

 

"You won't, you won't…" This is how they are, he knows this. This is new, this is just next. This began when they met and this isn't how this ends.

 

Foolish, inebriated, pompous words. No one could ever know any of that.

 

But James _really_ knows how he feels when Lewis is around.

 

So much of his life he's felt lost. Wandering in the shadow of parts of himself he didn't comprehend or didn't want.

 

He makes sense with Lewis. When he's with Lewis he can see that Lewis always needed a person like him, which is as good a reason as any to be the way he is.

 

Some time he wants to try and explain this coherently to Lewis, but for now the pressure between his legs is not decreasing and he skitters his hips, rubbing the head of his cock over the waistband of Lewis' trousers and pressing his lips back to his Inspector's neck.

 

Intricate bad ideas are wafting between them, webs of society and professional culture. But the room is private and warm, and smells of a sandalwood candle, and there is not any part of them being close to each other that has ever felt wrong.

 

Lewis moans as though he is in pain – and maybe he does feel it, maybe he feels ghosts pressing where Hathaway only has missed opportunities. But his arms move again, jerky with urgency, and suddenly his hands are sliding over Hathaway's buttocks, pulling him closer still.

 

_  
Yes. That's good, that's so…  
_

 

"Take your clothes off," James murmurs. Because being touched is incredible but he wants to touch, he wants to do this, to will this.

 

"Pushy, pushy." There's a low chuckle near his ear, and he shivers. 

 

Then the ear is kissed, and _oh…_ He didn't know that you could feel like this from ears, from…_oh, yes, like that…_

 

The chuckle again. "And there was me worried I'd bore you."

 

He knows he's blushing, can feel the prickling heat spread down his neck. Two fingers catch under his chin and turn back round the head he's trying to duck.

 

Lewis' eyes are startlingly blue, and with his hair you would never expect them to be.

 

And that's just how Lewis _begins_ to be surprising.

 

The eyes blink, gaze penetrating: "Listen. Nothing I do to you, nothing I say to you, is to make you feel ashamed."

 

It could be a command or an explanation, and either way James is grateful enough to blush again, but smiles through it this time, not looking away.

 

This time when they kiss it is less like fighting, and though James is still fairly sure he's doing it wrong – practice makes perfect and he hasn't, not really – it's good in its own way.

 

Somewhere along the way a hand, rough and large, encircles James' erection and strokes carefully and he, _and he, and he wants this slowly, wants this not to be over, but he can't find words, can't…_

 

He grabs Lewis' arm, feeling again the odd erotic thrill of the cotton sleeve and tries to stop the motion, breaking out of the kiss with a huge intake of breath.

 

"Not yet!" he manages. "Together."

 

He knows he should be embarrassed to be in this state, to be almost salivating for it.

 

Lewis' hair is all stuck on end from where James has been carding it, and he blinks before he speaks, a beat of self-control again, an uncertain, dry swallow.

 

"Have to get to the bed, then."

 

That throws them both a little. Bed is ominous, portentous, solemn, speaking of forethought and intent.

 

But they get there, avoiding each other's eyes.

 

In the bedroom Lewis undresses swiftly and without ceremony. Words are crashing into James' mind - marriage and sacrilege and age - but he stamps them down and grabs an image from one of them long enough to sit down on the bed and lie back on his elbows, parting his legs slightly and trying not to be terrified by it.

 

Lewis sees him and moves to him, sudden and quick, boxers still on, shirt half-off an arm.

 

When Lewis draws back again – this kiss was dirtier, wetter, and Lewis looks surprised enough that James wonders which one of them made it so – the atmosphere is easier.

 

For more than a moment they look at each other, inquisitively, sounding the depths of something.

 

Finally James lies back, urging Lewis to lean over him, growing bolder with short strokes of his nipples and chest, beginning to take in that_ yes, he can do this; he is allowed to do this..._

 

They cleave and twist together, moving more than James ever expected, appetite in both of them keener than perhaps either had realised.

 

The closer they get, the faster they head there, the less James can think.

 

Being touched, being stroked and petted is not repugnant. As Lewis promised there is no humiliation here, and somewhere between a kiss and a thrust James suddenly understands that Lewis thinks that he, James, is the one in control.

 

He wants to say, "Don't be afraid of me" but it sounds wrong.

 

He flips Lewis onto his back and puts his mouth all over him. _Truth is beauty._ Lewis arches his neck and keeps half-gasp-chuckling with something like delight and he is not a man that smiles enough.

 

At some point Lewis sits up and catches him again, close and enclosed once more, and reaches between them and strokes him again. James tenses, grits his teeth because golden electricity is shooting out along his body, and Lewis holds him up, supports and calms him, up and up the slope until everything is clear and brilliant.

 

There is a brief moment he doesn't recall – whiteout, blackout, overwhelmed.

 

Then he's tilted forward, leaning on Lewis' shoulder, telling the muscles of his neck that he's terrified and happy.

 

"Eh, eh…" Lewis is stroking his back and only trembling a little, and James suddenly recollects himself and moves his hand to reciprocate.

 

_It is better to give than to receive._ Afterwards, James decides he wants to see that expression on Lewis' face every day, every hour. It has only been moments but he's feasting on the memory.

 

They collapse together, still entwined. The words have gone away for a while, leaving the knowledge simple and easy, but they murmur things that only signify something that is true independently of them, something that _is._

 

This is the beautiful truth: Together they are free.


End file.
